Ratko Mladic buried in Belgrade with official honors

Ratko Mladic, the former military leader of the Bosnian Serbs, was laid to rest on September 7, 2026, in Belgrade. Mladic, who died on August 27 at age 84 while serving a life sentence at the UN detention center in The Hague for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, was buried at the Topcider cemetery following a funeral service at the Saint Luke Church.

Despite international warnings, the event took place with significant state involvement, including the use of a government aircraft to transport the body and the presence of Serbian soldiers. Attendees included high-ranking Serbian government officials, representatives from Republika Srpska, and the Russian ambassador to Serbia, Aleksandar Botsan-Kharchenko. The funeral service was conducted by Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church, with thousands of supporters marching in procession to the cemetery.

The European Union leadership, including Antonio Costa and Ursula von der Leyen, condemned the presence of Serbian officials at the funeral as a refusal to confront history and an act contrary to Serbia's European integration values. They labeled the scenes as shocking, noting that the event highlighted a continued struggle to reconcile with the atrocities committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.